


On the Warpath

by caffeinefire



Series: Ineffable Responses to an Ineffable Event (2019) [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Blood and Injury, Day Four Prompt: Princes of the Universe, Established Relationship, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Event, Ineffable Event 2019, M/M, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 01:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21171350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeinefire/pseuds/caffeinefire
Summary: Rage needs an outlet.And she found the demon first.Off-script, off-stage, off-kilter, War smashed through the glass store-front of a London bakery, sending people running and debris flying, snatching a particularly large shard of glass out of the air as she moved. Crowley was already scampering backward, but War was on him, hand at his throat and glass shard to his stomach. She picked him up without breaking stride, walking him back until she had him against a wall, feet scrambling for purchase where they barely touched the floor.“You,” she growled, her voice closer to the rough roll of truck tires on broken roads than to anything human. “A little birdie told me it was your fault.”





	On the Warpath

_Fly the moon and reach for the stars_  
_ With my sword and head held high_

_\--_

_Fighting and free, got your world in my hand_  
_ I'm here for your love and I'll make my stand_

You can’t have a war without War.

A bit on the nose, but true enough.

You can defeat her once, twice, a hundred times, end the conflict before it begins, send her up in flames, a sheath for her own sword, but as long as humans raise their weapons against one another, she’ll always pop back up, teeth bared in something not quite a smile, eyes eager and hungry, red glory in her hair and vengeance on her breath.

Defeat her before the war to end all wars, the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the largest, most glorious battle of ethereal and occult beings to ever grace the world, to ever raze the earth… and she’ll be more than a little pissed at the mundanity of the battle she re-emerges at next.

Rage needs an outlet.

And she found the demon first.

Off-script, off-stage, off-kilter, War smashed through the glass store-front of a London bakery, sending people running and debris flying, snatching a particularly large shard of glass out of the air as she moved. Crowley was already scampering backward, but War was on him, hand at his throat and glass shard to his stomach. She picked him up without breaking stride, walking him back until she had him against a wall, feet scrambling for purchase where they barely touched the floor.

“_You,” _she growled, her voice closer to the rough roll of truck tires on broken roads than to anything human. “A little birdie told me it was _your _fault.”

“Ah,” Crowley choked out, voice high and thin on limited air, “Hello. See you’re still mad.” He squeaked a little as she pushed the glass shard further toward his stomach. Her own blood was already dripping down around it from where she grasped it so tightly, but it had just started to pierce Crowley’s skin as he tried to push himself further back into the wall. “If you-,” Crowley tried to talk but War wasn’t interested. She squeezed harder around his throat until his words cut off, and then she _smiled-_

Crowley took that as his cue to cut and run. Just as she jabbed the glass shard forward, quick and decisive, Crowley _dropped, _long and lithe through her fingers and onto the floor where he bolted for the exit, snake form weaving under broken tables and around piles of shattered glass, leaving the bag of pastries he’d come here for behind at her feet.

War didn’t even need a moment to recover. She spun, shifted her grip on the shard and threw it, making her mark and pinning the snake’s tail to the ground.

“Ssssssssssss_sshit,”_ Crowley cried out, shifting back as much as he could manage. Scales still climbed their way up his neck and his eyes were blown wide and yellow. He grasped his calf where the glass shard stuck from it, half-embedded, and tried to get enough purchase with one arm and one leg to scramble back as War bent down and picked something up off the floor, then approached him. Slowly. Confidently.

“You know, it’s really not our fault if you look at what happened,” Crowley gasped out, voice weak and scratchy. He coughed, then backtracked, trying to think quickly around the pain in his calf and the lack of air in his lungs. “I mean, nobody’s fault really, just kind of-,”

“Shut up,” War cut him off. She raised what was in her hand, eyes alight with fury.

Crowley looked up at her in confusion as she dangled the bag of pastries in front of him.

“_This _is what you fought for?” her voice was quiet now, the high pitched whine of a bomb when the air is still, and the sky is clear, and there’s no time left to run.

“You are immortal. You are the darkest powers the world has to offer,” she snarled, working herself into a rage, and Crowley hit a wall, unable to back away any further. She stood right above him now.

“And you ruined _everything, _for _pastries,” _she was breathing hard, but then she paused. She took a moment to breathe deeply. She _smiled _again and reached into her pocket to pull out a small flask. She shook it, taunting, and Crowley could hear the liquid sloshing around inside.

“Everyone seems to think you’re immune to this now, but I think its worth another shot,” her smile grew wider as Crowley’s breathing picked up, rasping through a crushed throat even as he struggled not to react. “Weapons don’t just _stop _working. People have been hitting each other with rocks for thousands of years, and I’ve yet to find a single human immune to a good stone to the skull.”

Crowley tried again to morph into a snake but cried out and snapped back to bi-pedal halfway through as the glass in his calf shifted through his flesh. He pulled it out quickly, before he lost the nerve, but it was too late.

“Don’t worry,” War laughed as she reached for the cap, “your white-feathered friend will be following you soon enough.”

“I will do no such thing,” Aziraphale picked his way carefully but confidently through the rubble of the broken bakery.

“Aziraphale, no,” Crowley croaked out. “Run, don’t-,” a quick kick to Crowley’s injured leg stopped his pleading with a gasp of pain.

Aziraphale stopped moving, watching War, head held high. His face was frozen and unreadable, with none of the uncertainty or hopeful politeness Crowley was used to seeing. War grinned even _wider, _teeth filling the whole space of her mouth. She reached out an empty hand, calling another shard of glass to it, and by the time it reached her it was long and pointed, a sword of crystal metal.

Aziraphale didn’t react, only kept his eyes locked on hers.

“Crowley, when you have the chance, I want you to run,” he didn’t look at him, but he didn’t have to to know that Crowley was shaking his head.

War laughed, the rumble of a tank, and started to circle around Aziraphale, who only turned to keep watching her.

“_Oh, I get it,” _she growled, low and amused.

“Crowley, _please,” _Aziraphale grasped a wooden chair leg and snapped it off in his hand with one quick movement, giving him a makeshift weapon of his own.

_“You think I can’t hurt you,” _War reached into her pocket again, replacing the flask with a small glass jar containing a single flicker of writhing flame. She flicked her wrist back.

Crowley was already scrambling to his feet, and when his human body couldn’t manage it, he pushed his wings out onto the mortal plane. They were too big for the space, catching on glass and wood as they moved, but they gave him just enough lift to stand, and with a quick rush of air that sent the entire ruin of a shop into a whirlwind, he was between War and Aziraphale.

He caught her off guard, but not by much, managing to knock the jar from her hand and send it rolling across the bakery floor before she got a hold of him. She used his own momentum against him, catching him in her arm and locking him to her by the throat. He thrashed with his wings, but when she tore the sword down one of them he screamed, pulling them back out of existence.

The breath caught in Aziraphale’s throat and the wooden chair leg shook as his grip tightened.

_“I don’t get it,” _she snarled. For the first time Aziraphale’s gaze flickered over to Crowley, who was tearing at her forearm to no avail. _“You could have run. Had the entire rest of the universe to rule like princes. Instead, you robbed me of my glory. Of my purpose.” _Aziraphale ignored her.

“Darling, do you trust me?” Aziraphale’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat.

_“And here, on earth, you could rule like kings. No man could be your equal. Yet you waste your time in pastry shops.”_

Crowley’s eyes were wild for a second, trying to get his bearings, then they focused, confused, on Aziraphale. He hadn’t heard.

“Do you _trust me, _my love?”

Even through everything, Aziraphale saw his eyes soften at the endearment and he almost smiled. Then Crowley nodded, as vigorously as he could around the vice of War’s arm, and Aziraphale was free to turn his attention back to her.

There was a shift in his eyes that only Crowley could have noticed. The gentle blue flashing quickly to the shade of highly-concentrated ozone, sharp and angry.

He tried to gasp past War’s grip as he felt the air begin to hum, a high-pitched vibration that he felt all the way through to the core of his true form.

_“If you’re going to live here among them,” _War’s teeth snapped together playfully by Crowley’s ear as she turned the glass sword toward his throat. _“At least have a little fun with it.”_

**“You will release him,”** it was a command. There was no room to question the voice that spoke with Aziraphale’s mouth but boomed through the shop, shaking it with volume alone. **“Now.”**

The voice was righteous fury and holy wrath, the voice of a Principality and a soldier of heaven. It was not a voice Crowley had heard before, but it matched the unfamiliar rage on Aziraphale’s face. The electricity in the air was audible now, crackling with divine energy. Crowley squirmed beneath War’s grip, every instinct screaming to _run, _but even as the lighting tumbled toward him with a high-pitched whine of static and a simultaneous roll of thunder that _burned _its way through him, he gritted his teeth, _trusting._

Then he was falling, the support of War’s vice grip gone, and he grunted as the hard floor and sharp points of shattered glass rushed up to meet him. Still, it was better than being held aloft by the throat, he thought, as he tried to catch his breath through a crushed windpipe.

And suddenly he could breathe again. He gasped air into his lungs as Aziraphale dropped down next to him, and he felt healing miracles race through his body. It was enough to make him lightheaded, still coming down from the divine charge in the air.

“Crowley? Crowley are you alright? Oh, my dear I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

He heard the panic in Aziraphale’s voice and tried to focus his vision in on the angel. The effort gave him a headache.

“Crowley, oh no, oh please say something. Crowley?”

Crowley’s finally managed to focus in on his eyes, a gentle blue again, and he realized the angel was holding his head in his hands.

“Should-,” Crowley paused for breath and reached up to massage his still-healing throat. “Should’ve run. Obviously had it handled.”

Aziraphale let out a whimper, then laughed through it, a small, joyous sound.

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, my dear,” he let another relieved laugh escape him, pressing a quick kiss to Crowley’s forehead. “Now where else does it hurt? I’ll-,”

Crowley snorted at him, and waved him off, pushing himself up into a sitting position to prove his wellness.

“’m fine angel, you got the worst bits,” and it was true. His calf felt smooth and whole, and he was breathing a lot more freely, even if there was the occasional hitch. He still had a pounding headache, and a dozen other cuts and bruises besides. He’d have to deal with his wing eventually, but he was hoping Aziraphale would forget about that part, because the truth was the angel looked exhausted.

Crowley doubted if he’d _ever _tried to smite someone before. He couldn’t picture it. Not once in 6000 years. And the burst of power had obviously taken its toll on him. He was pale, and his chest was heaving with over-exertion, but he was still looking down on Crowley with such reckless concern. As if he’d still prefer to pour out whatever energy he had left for the sake of Crowley’s comfort.

The demon smiled crooked up at him, one corner of his mouth pulling up unbidden, overtaken by fondness, and defenses lowered by the crashing adrenaline. Aziraphale had started glancing around at the rubble of the bakery, one side scorched black with lighting, his eyebrows pinching together high with embarrassment as he started to fret.

“Oh dear. We’ve really made a mess of things here haven’t we? I suppose we ought to- _oh and what are you laughing at, you serpent, we-,” _Crowley pulled him down into a kiss.

Aziraphale softened into it immediately, tracing his fingers down Crowley’s jawline, and Crowley could feel him smiling as he pulled away.

“Well, that’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting after nearly smiting you.”

“You’d never have hit me,” Crowley was still grinning up at him with a smile that he hoped could be described as _tempting _but was considerably closer to _lovestruck. _“And I wouldn’t have cared if you had.”

Aziraphale drew in a shaky breath, his lower lip wobbling until he let the breath out in a determined huff.

“Well _I _certainly would have cared. Now come on, let’s-,”

“_Did you really think a bit of lightning could keep me down?”_

They froze.

War was picking herself up from the other side of the shop, clothes blackened and charred, but skin unharmed.

_“This isn’t over.”_

In one quick motion she tossed the jar of fire into the air and sliced clean through with the glass sword. The jar shattered, but the flame curled its way down the weapon and set the bakery dancing with rainbow light as the glass of the sword reflected and refracted its motion and glow. An ethereal prism of occult fury. She took a precious second to _smile. _And then lunged.

“Yes. It is,” Aziraphale was calm as he stood quickly, moving between Crowley and War’s path, and when he reached for his sword it was there. Flaming like anything. He parried her blow without an effort, careful to step out of the way of the flying sword of hellfire as he disarmed her, and in a single step he ran her through. She stood, growling pitifully at them, thrashing on the blade as the flames licked up from her wound to consume her.

_“That’s _my _sword,” _she coughed out, fury turning quickly to fear in her eyes.

“No, my dear,” Aziraphale pulled the sword back as the flames took her over, sending her screaming into smoke. “It most certainly is not.”

The bakery was silent for a moment, a slight breeze the only movement as it wound its way through the broken storefront, lifting dust and ash alike in its silent dance. In a flurry of sound, Crowley pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the phantom pain in his freshly-healed calf.

“A- _Aziraphale?”_ the name strangled up into a high-pitched question.

“I, um,” he turned, stunned as he watched the flames flicker out on the blade. “I don’t know. I-,”

“Could- Could you _always _do that?”

“I’m not sure,” he swallowed, then looked up at Crowley. “I suppose I’ve never really tried.”

Both their heads snapped up to the sound of knocking, where a delivery man was rapping redundantly on the empty doorframe of the ruined bakery.

“Excuse me, gents, I’m here to pick up a sword?”

Aziraphale blinked once. Twice. Mouth moving without sound before clearing his throat.

“…right. Right,” he responded, but made no move to approach with the sword. The delivery man began to pick his way across the debris, unaffected. When he reached them, he looked between their stunned expressions, then nodded, smiling sympathetically.

“Same-Second delivery. Like Same-Day, but faster. Never actually seen in it practice. Not really sure how they pull it off, myself, I’m just here for the return trip,” he held out his hand and Aziraphale quickly handed him the hilt of the sword. He tucked it under his arm, exchanging it for a clipboard with a pen attached.

“Just sign here, and here,” he smiled as he took the clipboard back. “Only one person on the list for that particular perk. Must be you, I suppose. Was always curious about that,” he tucked the clipboard back under his arm with the sword. “Anyways, best be getting along.” He gave a quick, two fingered salute, and picked his way back through the rubble toward a delivery truck, where he packed the sword neatly into a box, tucked it somewhere in the back, and drove off whistling, all while Crowley and Aziraphale watched in silence.

“Well that was a thing,” Crowley was the first to gather his wits about him, shoving his hands into his pockets, elbows spread wide, and letting out a deep breath. “I don’t know about you, but I could go for a few drinks. Back to the bookshop?”

“Back _home, _dear. And yes, I think a drink or two sounds lovely,” Aziraphale wrapped his arm around Crowley’s, holding him close. “But first we’ll have to see what we can do about that wing.”

“The wing’s _fine, _angel.”

“Now, we’ll have none of that, did you really think you could get away with trying to let me forget?”

Crowley grumbled something about never getting away with anything as they wound slowly through piles of debris and back out into the street.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @caffeinefire on tumblr! This is in response to prompts by @ineffable-event on tumblr!


End file.
